A tip for those of you trying out sexual accoutrements for the first, second or 75th time: When the fun is over, search deep within yourself to ascertain that none of the fun has been left behind. Because some things, cock rings especially, can stay with you far longer than you'd think. Even longer than a month.

For one woman, this holiday season has already brought one miracle: The realization that whatever horrifying things were coming out of her vagina were not caused by cancer or an STD, but by a neglected cock ring, sad, alone, and full of germs that she'd forgotten to take out of her vagina. Or, I guess, that she never knew was in her vagina in the first place. And apparently it was so far up there that she couldn't even feel it until it started rotting and releasing a putrid white discharge from her vaginal orifice. This is her story, via Reddit:

We were fooling around with my boyfriend and he started fingering me. Suddenly he goes like "uhhh.. ummm.. Is this normal?" And asked me to feel it by myself.

I almost peed myself from fear. I couldn't understand for the life of me what was this thing inside of me. I actually was feeling the opening of the cock ring.. When not stretched its diameter can perfectly fit a finger.

I thought it was my fucking cervix. I though it inflamed and fell down or something. I started to panic. You see, the cock ring it soft and pliable, but firmer than anything that could be inside me.

First of all, that is pretty much the scariest thing that could happen during sex with the one you love. I'd like to think that if my partner and I were engaging in a pleasurable sexual exchange he'd have the decency to wait until after we were done to point out any polyps or growths, but some people just don't know what appropriate boundaries are. One point to this woman's boyfriend for being caring; minus one point for freaking her out during sex. Sex is already all weird and pressur-ey, you know? I'm so focused on keeping my stomach held in the entire time that I can't even imagine what it would look like if I suddenly got frightened? (I wish there was some kind of invisible girdle you could wear during sex. I would buy such girld.e )

Then I remembered. Flashback to Halloween. We got shipped this set of 5 cock rings. It was funny and exciting. We were giggling all the way from the post office. And of course we immediately decided to try them out.

My SO put on two at the same time. And it began. Fun and giggles.. And suddenly his roommate came home. We scrambled and in the haste of things not me, not my SO noticed that one ring was missing.

Pro-tip: don't put two of those things on at the same time. It will not enhance pleasure. Source: experience. Since condoms were covered by his flex spending at the time, we bought like 40 packs and then tried to use them all. Yes, you can buy the ones with the vibrating rings with flex spending! No, you can't buy a defibrillator — he had to return that. I was kind of sad because I like making grilled cheese sandwiches.

Here's what this woman's cock ring looked like when it went into her vagina:

And here's what she says it looked like when it came out:

So when I finally and fearfully pulled that thing out it was fucking disgusting. It was sort of transparent. When we bought it it was fucking PURPLE. It was covered and filled with this white discharge. Like mayo or liquefied cottage. Blech. Gross as fuck. To my surprise the smell was OK. Not bad, just neutral.

But don't take her word for it. There is, of course, a photo:

Chewed up and smelling like mayo! (Which, coincidentally is the title of my upcoming autobiography available from Hyperion press in 2015.)

There are some things to be taken away from this story. First, "listen to your body" because your body talks (according to Olivia Newton-John, at least); second, "count what goes in and out of your body." That's pretty sound advice. It's like in preschool where you have to make sure all the blocks are in the right spaces before you can go out for recess, except this is more like "make sure there's nothing so deep in you that you can't even feel it before you go into the other room to play Xbox or fall asleep."